Idaho Skies Transcript for January 20th to 26th

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for the fourth week of January. We’re your hosts, Paul…

RACHEL
…and Rachel.

PAUL
On the 21st, the moon passes very close to the planet Jupiter.

RACHEL
Because of its closeness to Earth, the moon appears 36 times larger than Jupiter.

PAUL
However, Jupiter’s actual diameter is 41 times larger than the moon’s diameter.

RACHEL
When you look at the moon and Jupiter with your binoculars or telescope, imagine that the moon is really Jupiter and Jupiter is really the moon.

PAUL
Then you’ll get a perspective on their real relative proportions.

RACHEL
The moon appears at its smallest diameter in the sky on the night of the 22nd.

PAUL
That’s because the moon is at its greatest distance from Earth, or at the apogee of its orbit.

RACHEL
The center of the moon is 251,848 miles from the center of Earth. That makes the moon 28,125 miles farther away from Earth than it was two weeks ago at perigee.

PAUL
That’s a little over three earth diameters farther away.

RACHEL
The moon is full on the night of the 26th.

PAUL
The full moon in January is called the Wolf Moon.

RACHEL
The name is given to the moon because people heard packs of hungry wolves at night in January.

PAUL
While we attribute this name to Native Americans, the Algonquins did not refer to the moon by this name.

RACHEL
Instead, they named it the sun has no strength to thaw. Other tribes refer to the full moon of this month as frost in the teepee.

PAUL
While it is cold on January nights in Idaho, on the moon’s surface, the temperature is over 220 degrees Fahrenheit.

RACHEL
That’s hot enough to boil water.

PAUL
So the spacesuits of the Apollo astronauts protected them from more than the vacuum of space, it also protected from them from the high temperatures present on the moon.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the fourth week of January. Next week, in celebration of the launch of the first American satellite, we’ll tell you how you can observe satellites passing over Boise.

PAUL
Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Idaho Skies for this week’s event reminders and sky maps. For Idaho Skies this is Paul…

RACHEL
and Rachel.
Idaho Skies is a production of NearSys and Radio Boise 89.9 FM Caldwell/Boise and 93.5 FM downtown, K228EK Garden City.

PAUL
Dark skies and bright stars.